What surprised him—what surprised all of them—was Clarke’s girlfriend hiding in the bathroom, dressed in daisy-print panties and a sweatshirt that said CORMAN HIGH VARSITY. All of seventeen and soaring on meth and clutching a little .22 in one hand. She was listening in when Roy Klowes asked Clarke if she was around, said that if Clarke’s bitch blew all of them, they could cross two hundred bucks off the debt right there. Roy Klowes had walked into the bathroom, taking his cock out of his pants to have a leak, but the girl had thought he was unzipping for other reasons and opened fire. Her first shot went wide, and her second shot went into the ceiling, because by then Roy was whacking her with his machete, and it was all sliding down the red hole, away from reality and into the territory of bad dream.

“I’m sure he lost some of the money,” Race said. “Could be he lost as much as half what we set him up with. But if you think Dean Clarke put the entire sixty grand into that one trailer, I can’t help you.”

“Maybe he did have some of it tucked away. I’m not saying you’re wrong. But I don’t see why it would wind up with the sister. Could just as easily be in a mason jar, buried somewhere in his backyard. I’m not going to pick on some pathetic hooker for fun. If we find out she’s suddenly come into money, that’s a different story.”

“I was six months setting this deal up. And I’m not the only one with a lot riding on it.”

“Okay. Let’s talk about how to make it right in Vegas.”

“Talk isn’t going to make anything right. Riding is. His sister is in Show Low today, but when she finds out her brother and his little honey got painted all over their ranch—”

“You want to keep your voice down,” Vince said.

Lemmy watched them with his arms folded across his chest, a few feet to Vince’s left but ready to move if he had to get between them. The others stood in groups of two and three, bristly and road-dirty, wearing leather jackets or denim vests with the gang’s patch on them: a skull in an Indian headdress, above the legend THE TRIBE • LIVE ON THE ROAD, DIE ON THE ROAD. They had always been the Tribe, although none of them were Indian, except for Peaches, who claimed to be half Cherokee, except when he felt like saying he was half Spaniard or half Inca. Doc said he could be half Eskimo and half Viking if he wanted—it still added up to all retard.

“The money is gone,” Vince said to his son. “The six months, too. See it.”